How To Handle Grinches

This Christmas past wasn't the easiest ever, but I flat refused to let its uncertain, unexpected circumstances dampen my spirit. The biggest game-changer was that the nasty green Grinch of sickness invaded Whoville and delayed our big family dinner and present-opening extravaganza until New Year's Eve--which meant we were singing "Here Comes Santa Claus" one minute and "Auld Lang Syne" the next.

But it wasn't all bad either, affording a little breather between the flurry of all the pre-Christmas madness and the actual celebration. I didn't have to come right home from playing a Christmas Eve church service to thawing out chickens and breaking up bread for dressing. I got to cover the tree with candy canes that I bought at 75% off.

No, as I relegate Christmas 2018 to the family history books, I do so with thoughts of its uniqueness among all the others and of those things that make me smile. Not the least of those is this great shot of the six kids posing in front of the tree with me snapping the shutter just before Zoomie let loose the sneeze that surely shook the entire Midwest.

 
And, I certainly can't forget 2018 as the Christmas I got to attend my first-ever official Grinch Party, a first-grade celebration of sweetness, slime, sparkles, and general green delight. It was an event I loved being able to share with Beenie, although it turned out to be quite different from what I expected.

What do you expect, anyway, when invited to a Grinch Party? Well, I thought there might be games, a snack to share, a little program maybe, some stories. But no--not quite. As soon as I arrived at the Grinch Party, it became clear that I had come to work.

The classroom, I quickly saw, was divided into five Grinch-themed activity stations for 20 or so first-graders to visit, four at once, for 15-minute increments of time. Upon arriving, I was thanked profusely for "volunteering" and invited to man the table where Grinch ornaments would be mass-produced.

Other stations enabled children to smear green icing and stick candy on an upside-down waffle cone (and eat it), construct a Grinch mask, make green "slime," mix (and, again, eat) Who pudding, and design a Grinch face mask. Let your imagination go a minute to fathom the effect of 20 excited six-year-olds on sugar highs rotating through these activities for 75 minutes. It was chaotic. It was intense. It was loud!

And it was wonderful. The grand finale consisted of the whole class returning to their seats to whip up individual baggies of Grinch dust (ingredients: sugar, green glitter, and green food coloring).

Here, at center, you can see Beenie with his hand up, worried that he had poked enough of a tiny hole in his baggie for some Grinch dust to escape before its assigned duty on Christmas Eve. (He and I were able to repair it with a piece of tape before anyone else found out about it. To this day, it remains our secret.)

There are two lessons I take to heart as I close the book on Christmas 2018. One is to stay flexible in case the Grinch of sickness tries to foil your family celebration. And, if you unexpectedly find yourself at the helm of a Grinch Party activity, just do what I did: roll up your sleeves, tuck your hair behind your ears, breathe deeply and often--and pretend you are a six-year-old in a storybook world during the year's most blessed season.